Official AMD Polaris Review Thread: Radeon RX 480, RX 470, and RX 460

[3DVagabond]

That's the thing I worry about if I go the 1070 route.

Especially considering Pascal isn't real good at DX12 right off the bat. Anyone who buys it needs to understand they are getting a uarch best suited for DX11 not DX12.

 

[3DVagabond]

Supposedly the 470 is actually the most efficient, 110W and it's what AMD used for it's claims of up to 2.8x perf/w. Look at their slides again, specifically a 470, not 480.

This tells me they went for that last drop of performance, beyond the optimal cooling, PCB power, vcore & clock range and power usage went boom. This is actually proven already by Computerbase, because they did a small under-volt and power usage dropped 30W while performance GOES UP, because it's not hitting thermal/power limits to throttle.

I think they had a performance target, power target and price target. In order to get the $200 priced card to hit the performance target they had to up the clocks a bit and blew the power budget. It was a compromise they decided to make rather than sacrifice performance.

 

[boozzer]

VR is a huge market, at least as big as consoles + almost every pc gamer. and then you have adult entertainment.

If you think VR is a small market, you have zero, absolutely zero clue as to what is going on.

 

[3DVagabond]

What is becoming apparent is that this GPU is made for poor people.

AMD PR is absolutely terrible. They could have released not buggy driver in the first place, so the GPU performance could go up by 5%. And then they could lower the voltage so that GPU could not get into thermal limit, and draw over 30 watts less, so the general perception of this GPU would have been MUCH, MUCH better.

I've never seen a driver that didn't have any bugs. And what does AMD PR have to do with that?

As far as "made for poor people" that's ridiculous. I can afford any card I want. Video cards aren't worth more than $300 to me though.

 

[agfkfhahddhdn]

.

 

[ZGR]

I honestly think the RX 480 is getting a little bit too much flak from you guys. I found the R9 290 to be a solid performer for the amount of power it consumed, and now we get a cheaper GPU that consumes far less power, cheaper to make, and is faster than an R9 290 in newer games.

We are looking at the baseline of performance for the RX 480. When the 1500 MHz versions are popping up on reviews with mature drivers, I think we will see significant performance boosts. I'm also hoping AMD will be able to improve Polaris' DX11 performance through drivers.

RX 480 power consumption is a non-issue for an entry-level PC gamer. Put the RX 480 in the eyes of a new PC gamer, who is completely intimidated by all the choice he/she must make. At its cost, the RX 480 is a no-brainer. Affordable power supplies are aplenty while power cost is generally low. The only problem is that the RX 480 is not a drop-in upgrade for certain cheap pre-built desktops. I don't believe it was ever supposed to be a card that sips power anyways. We have the RX 460 and RX 470 coming right around the 1060 launch most likely. It should fill in most of the price/power/performance gaps we have now.

Anyone buying an RX 480 now should be aware of its high stock voltage. Undervolting is incredibly easy and offers real temperature and power consumption improvements. If I owned RX 480 CFX, I would undervolt them -100mv and run the cards at their highest stable clockspeed (only when CFX scales). Doing so enables a near-silent fan curve at load. Buying an AIB version means we can overvolt and overclock them to the max. That's what I'd be doing. I expect RX 480 performance to increase dramatically over the next couple years. Even if RX 480 @ 1500 MHz consumes about as much power as an R9 290, does it really matter? I don't care about my power consumption, as long as I'm keeping everything cool and quiet and not pushing the voltage too much.

I see a lot of people saying the comparison for the RX 480 and the GTX 1070 is wrong. I agree. What is actually compared is RX 480 CF vs GTX 1070. If the GTX 1070 has equal performance to RX 480 8GB Crossfire, but costs less, does that make the RX 480 CF a bad deal? We are seeing in many benchmarks that Polaris is not scaling well. I don't believe that we are seeing Polaris' full potential yet, but it does put the GTX 1070 in pretty good light considering its high cost; especially in games that CFX/SLI will never work.

 

[LTC8K6]

like you, I'm not all that interested in VR. Not yet, anyway. If it was maybe 30% of the current adoption cost, I would consider it.

But I don't see it as being primarily for games. Once those sets get smaller, quality improves, cords start disappearing, it will start finding itself in platforms and uses that people haven't yet anticipated. I think it would be great for all sorts of training purposes: medicine, museum tours/education, military...even general computer use people are already talking about how it's a superior desktop setup.

I still don't see it as something that is all that appealing for me, but I do trust a lot of the opinions of those around here that have it and say it really is phenomenal. I look at the value here regarding what AMD has done as a market value; not a personal interest. When you consider that, you can only see that this is the proverbial gauntlet being thrown.

Yeah, I have zero interest in it, and don't understand why anyone is interested in it.

I could maybe understand if it was more realistic, but it still looks like crap compared to reality, and that's going to be the case for a long time yet, as far as I can tell.

Even if it were realistic, I still have no interest in false reality.

And there's no way I am walking around my house with a thing on my head so I can watch CNN or porn or pretend I'm in the Civil War.

We already have people who can't pay attention to reality just from looking at their cell phones. They walk into things, crash their car, walk into you, etc.
They can't get along without their cell phones. If you take them away, they are like drug addicts without their fix.

I can't imagine what we'll get when people have the habit of wearing VR gear and being in a false reality for hours a day.

Well, to each his own.

 

[LTC8K6]

VR is a huge market, at least as big as consoles + almost every pc gamer. and then you have adult entertainment.

If you think VR is a small market, you have zero, absolutely zero clue as to what is going on.

I don't even know anyone who owns a console...

So I don't even see that as a big market.

Must be a different class of folks.

 

[Mercennarius]

I don't even know anyone who owns a console...

So I don't even see that as a big market.

Must be a different class of folks.

Consoles are a multi-billion dollar market with tens of millions of customers. Its a BIG market. But not every demographic cares for a console, and you fall into one of those.

 

[ZGR]

Must be a different class of folks.

Ah yes, the smallfolk. I know many people who own consoles. They are excellent media players!

 

[boozzer]

It's a huge potential market. 3D had a potential market of every movie theater and ever person with a TV, how'd that turn out?

3D needed very, very expensive tvs. it was pushed for a while because sony and the like wanted to sell tvs.

vr, for console and pc gamers alike, just need to buy a headset which is around 500$ give or take 100-200$ and the next gen consoles will have vr as a major selling point. it will be huge within a few years. you can quote me on this. it will only get bigger after console adoption.

 

[LTC8K6]

Consoles are a multi-billion dollar market with tens of millions of customers. Its a BIG market. But not every demographic cares for a console, and you fall into one of those.

I take that back.

There is in fact a PS2 console in my home.

It was last played sometime around when it came out, I believe.

 

[boozzer]

I don't even know anyone who owns a console...

So I don't even see that as a big market.

Must be a different class of folks.

are you serious with this post? I hope not.

and what purpose does your post serve by responding to 1/3 of my post?

 

[topmounter]

It's a huge potential market. 3D had a potential market of every movie theater and ever person with a TV, how'd that turn out?

Or for that matter the Wii... you know, getting off the couch and flailing your arms around was the future of console gaming

 

[ZGR]

Or for that matter the Wii... you know, getting off the couch and flailing your arms around was the future of console gaming _O

Getting off topic, but the Wii sold extremely well, even with some gimmicky motion controls. It got a lot of the Baby Boomer generation off the couch to play some bowling.

 

[IEC]

Bringing this thread back on-topic.

Sapphire RX 480 Nitro port view:

 

[topmounter]

I take that back.

There is in fact a PS2 console in my home.

It was last played sometime around when it came out, I believe.

I have a PS3 gathering dust. I bought it to play RDR, but I didn't find playing games with the funpad to be very... fun. We also have a Wii gathering dust, I think that was given to us by someone in my wife's family that didn't use it either.

 

[xthetenth]

Bringing this thread back on-topic.

Sapphire RX 480 Nitro port view:

Any word on limitations on which combos you can run?

 

[sze5003]

Bringing this thread back on-topic.

Sapphire RX 480 Nitro port view:

So I'm seeing a lot of these pics pop up. But little information on specifics and dates. I hope soon.

 

[IEC]

Any word on limitations on which combos you can run?

That's a negative. I haven't seen a confirmed release date yet either. Needless to say, my interest was piqued by the unique port arrangement.

 

[boozzer]

Getting off topic, but the Wii sold extremely well, even with some gimmicky motion controls. It got a lot of the Baby Boomer generation off the couch to play some bowling.

the biggest problem with wii was lack of software support. you can sell 20+ millions of the console unit, but with 5 good games in it's life time, you are gonna have a bad time.

vr will not have that problem. AMD targeting vr is the right move, but I still think it is too early. amd needs to time it's pr campaign with the consoles and valve + facebook. they will all feed each other.

480 is just the start.

 

[boozzer]

So I'm seeing a lot of these pics pop up. But little information on specifics and dates. I hope soon.

they are teasers. something to drum up interest. so PR.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Getting off topic, but the Wii sold extremely well, even with some gimmicky motion controls. It got a lot of the Baby Boomer generation off the couch to play some bowling.

Exactly. It was fun for a while, but ultimately is a gimmic. How many of those people are still playing? And you didn't even have to wear a headset and look like a dork. I view VR as just a more (granted much more) sophisticated gimmic.

My personal opinion also of why 3D TVs never took off is only partly due to the price, but moreso due to having to wear the stupid glasses or goggles or whatever they were called. I remember looking at 3DTVs in costco, and thinking, " that is really cool, but no way am I going to sit around looking like a dork and having my face hurt just to see 3D TV."

I see a market for sure for VR, but I think it is more niche than a lot of the VR fans. I see it for the upper level console gamer, and a portion of the PC gamers, but I dont think a lot of older PC gamers will really be interested. I know I am not.

 

[deanx0r]

I honestly think the RX 480 is getting a little bit too much flak from you guys. I found the R9 290 to be a solid performer for the amount of power it consumed, and now we get a cheaper GPU that consumes far less power, cheaper to make, and is faster than an R9 290 in newer games.

We are looking at the baseline of performance for the RX 480. When the 1500 MHz versions are popping up on reviews with mature drivers, I think we will see significant performance boosts. I'm also hoping AMD will be able to improve Polaris' DX11 performance through drivers.

RX 480 power consumption is a non-issue for an entry-level PC gamer. Put the RX 480 in the eyes of a new PC gamer, who is completely intimidated by all the choice he/she must make. At its cost, the RX 480 is a no-brainer. Affordable power supplies are aplenty while power cost is generally low. The only problem is that the RX 480 is not a drop-in upgrade for certain cheap pre-built desktops. I don't believe it was ever supposed to be a card that sips power anyways. We have the RX 460 and RX 470 coming right around the 1060 launch most likely. It should fill in most of the price/power/performance gaps we have now.

Anyone buying an RX 480 now should be aware of its high stock voltage. Undervolting is incredibly easy and offers real temperature and power consumption improvements. If I owned RX 480 CFX, I would undervolt them -100mv and run the cards at their highest stable clockspeed (only when CFX scales). Doing so enables a near-silent fan curve at load. Buying an AIB version means we can overvolt and overclock them to the max. That's what I'd be doing. I expect RX 480 performance to increase dramatically over the next couple years. Even if RX 480 @ 1500 MHz consumes about as much power as an R9 290, does it really matter? I don't care about my power consumption, as long as I'm keeping everything cool and quiet and not pushing the voltage too much.

I see a lot of people saying the comparison for the RX 480 and the GTX 1070 is wrong. I agree. What is actually compared is RX 480 CF vs GTX 1070. If the GTX 1070 has equal performance to RX 480 8GB Crossfire, but costs less, does that make the RX 480 CF a bad deal? We are seeing in many benchmarks that Polaris is not scaling well. I don't believe that we are seeing Polaris' full potential yet, but it does put the GTX 1070 in pretty good light considering its high cost; especially in games that CFX/SLI will never work.

Polaris was touted to be extremely efficient at Computex. AMD bragged about it and under delivered once again. It barely matches Maxwell's efficiency when it comes 2 years later and benefits from a full node shrink.

You may not care for power consumption or efficiency, but you are just a minority. The vast majority this card is targeted at uses budget components, or pre-built PCs that may not have the wattage required to run this card.


Efficiency dictates the overall performance of your GPU/CPU, the amount of cooling required, the quality of the power delivery system, the overall cost of computing. It dictates the integration in ITX enclosures, AIO/prebuilt desktops, laptops. Efficiency scales from top to bottom and the other way around and is a good indication how top end product will perform.

If they really missed the mark on efficiency, it wont bold well for Vega.

 

[Yuriman]

I'm late to this party, but after reading Anandtech's preview article, I walked away scratching my head as to how the RX480 managed to come in at around GTX 970 power consumption, with around GTX 970 performance, on 14nm, with only a minor pricing advantage. Sure, it's a slightly better card for a similar price, but is this really what we've been waiting for since the last node shrink in 2011?